


Silphium

by EzraTheBlue



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Kanan Lives AU, Miscarriage, Multi, Past Rape/Non-con, Referenced Canonical Child Abuse, Sibling Incest, Suicide mention, Threesome, Threesome - F/M/M, canon-typical incest, mentions of canonical rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-01-01 04:49:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12148956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzraTheBlue/pseuds/EzraTheBlue
Summary: On his path home, Gojyo discovers a body in a puddle of blood.Two bodies. And to his surprise, both of them are still breathing.(Or, an AU in which Gonou's rescue of Kanan was successful, and Gojyo finds them both.)





	1. Silphium

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday to the Cho twins! 
> 
> I've been working on this on the side for quite a few months. I had hoped to have this story done by now, but as often happens when it comes to these things, it ended up needing to be decompressed for me to be happy with it. So, I'll take my time. Please enjoy!

**Silphium**

**1:**

Always the fucking hair. Gojyo pushed a stray back behind his ear towards the rest of his ponytail, wicking off rainwater and irritation, then heaved a sigh that rolled into the pouring storm. There wasn't much use worrying, he couldn't change it, but he wasn't going to stick around when some girl was going to flip his hair around all night.

It was fine, though. There would be card games tomorrow night, and he hadn't been so hot tonight, anyway. He looked up to the sky bitterly, wondering if he could blame the rain. Tomorrow, maybe the sky would clear, and his luck would really hit. He'd play a few rounds, fill his pockets, maybe pick up a girl whose name he wouldn't remember in a week, or regret taking the wrong girl home for the umpteenth time, then laze around until the time came to do it all again. Life was easy.

So easy he could puke.

Gojyo would have wandered his way home then, his shirt and boots soaking through, and he would have fallen into his bed and slept until he felt like waking up, and life would have gone on, but that was when he came to a bump in the road.

Two corpses in a deep puddle.

They were laid out together like mirror twins in the womb, knee to knee, nose to nose, heads bent together like the crook of a silphium seed. A man in filthy clothes. A woman in a stained, ripped dress. They'd come together, and they'd died together. His arm was slung over her shoulder, and Gojyo could plainly see now that half of that puddle was blood, and a bloody path led from somewhere else in the forest to where the two lay. He crouched down to look a little closer, and realized that these weren't corpses.

Corpses didn't talk to each other.

“I'm sorry,” she was gasping, her voice tiny as if crushed underfoot. “It... it hurts... and you're heavy...”

“I begged you not to take me,” he whispered back, his chest shuddering. Something in the puddle shuddered too, and Gojyo's stomach twisted into a knot when he realized that the man's insides were outside. “I'm done for. I'm sorry, love, I'm sorry, I failed you--” The man's eyes, bleary and unfocused, tipped up towards him through the droning rain, and he laughed. “See, the angel of vengeance comes now...”

He was dying in the road, and when he looked at Gojyo, he laughed. The woman, however, lifted her head a little, enough to implore Gojyo with despair and desperation plain in her every feature. Gojyo couldn't remember the last time a woman hadn't looked at him with desire.

He didn't have to think about it. Later, he would wonder if he should have, but the thing to do seemed painfully obvious. He leaned down between them, got both of them, one on each shoulder, and lifted. Together, they were heavy, but he could handle them. He clutched the man's shirt to the slash in his belly, and looked to the woman, the more lucid of the two. He didn't know what to say; there was too much, so much he wanted to ask, but he couldn't muster words. Instead, he walked on, the man dead weight, the woman barely stumbling.

He had no idea what had put them in his path tonight, but he felt compelled to pick them up, like he'd walked a tightrope of a red string and found his fate in a bloody pool.

* * *

 

“Just sit yourself down, sweetheart, I'm doing all I can.” Gojyo laid the man out in his bed, the best flat surface he had, as the woman stood behind him, fretting and making little gasping noises like a fish without water. She hadn't noticed the wrinkled magazines, old clothes, and used tissues scattered around on the ground, affixed solely to her partner. In the light, her hair, wound in a braid to her waist, was streaked with his blood too, her face gaunt, cheekbones hollow, but he couldn't see any injuries on her. Maybe she was just exhausted and overwhelmed. She stood at Gojyo's bedside as Gojyo got the man's limp limbs laid out, but her knees buckled under her, and she crumpled, wide-eyed, on the floor at Gojyo's feet. Gojyo couldn't tear his eyes away from the man. “Just rest, I'll help you in a sec.”

The guy needed Gojyo's attention. He was no doctor, but he knew that all the stuff hanging out of his gut really needed to be back in. He stepped around the folds of the woman's dress and rinsed his gritty hands off, grabbed a roll of gauze he kept for nights when he flirted with the wrong girl in front of the wrong man, then returned to the man's side. The man's eyes were open and glassy, but he was breathing. Gojyo hoped he wasn't awake, and that he wouldn't wake up. Not while he was still like this.

As gently and gingerly as he could, he prodded the man's intestines back into the gash. The woman stifled a cry, clapping her hands to her mouth. Gojyo shushed a few times, mostly trying to silence the panic screaming in his own head, and worked the guts back in, trying as hard as he could not to think about what he was doing. He used a few good rolls of gauze to cover the cut and hold everything in, his palms damp with nervous sweat as he tied it off. “That's the best I can do for him, he needs a doctor. An actual doctor.” Gojyo stepped gingerly around the woman to grab his coat, but twisted over his shoulder. He had only been half talking to her, but as much as he could handle minor injuries, he never knew what to do with a crying woman. He paused and put a hand on her shoulder. “Watch over him, sweetie.” She shivered when he touched her, but the second he tried to smooth her hair back, he noticed blood pooling in her lap. “Shit. Uh, I dunno if you noticed, but--” She shivered and bowed her head, clearly indicating that she had noticed. “I don't got any feminine stuff, but if you want a towel or something to sit on 'til I can get you some lady pads or something--”

“It's not that,” she whispered, and folded both hands over her middle. “It hurts, but I'm glad it's dead.”

Gojyo's stomach twisted as sorted through everything that might mean. “Uh. Towels. Bathroom. They're in there. I'll be back.” He squeezed her shoulder, then released her and hurried for the door. If she meant what he thought she meant, he needed a doctor. Bad.

He woke up the doctor sleeping at the town's clinic desk, dripping all over his floor and dropping all the money he had on the desk as he explained: “There's a guy with his guts popping out and a girl losing a baby at my house.” That woke the doctor up damn fast, and he even forgot to pocket the cash as he followed Gojyo out.

When Gojyo pushed the door open, the guy was twisting and moaning a little in the bed, and the girl was gone, leaving only a thin trail of blood drips between where she'd been kneeling and the bathroom door. Gojyo stood back as the doctor ripped off his slipshod patch job and got out needle and thread. The man pitched as the needle pierced his skin, his hand unconsciously reaching and grasping for something. Gojyo slipped around the side of the bed and grasped his palm in his hand. “Hey now, it's okay, it's gonna be okay.” He squeezed the man's hand. For a second, the man's eyes – glass green, wet with panic – locked with his, and his face lit with understanding before he collapsed back into senselessness.

The woman was sobbing, audible through the bathroom door. Gojyo tried to center himself on the rise and fall of the man's chest, centering his world around keeping his heart beating. “It's gonna be okay,” he repeated, louder.

The doctor's stitches were neat enough, but the closed wound would turn into a nasty scar. “He's lucky to be alive after a scrape like that,” the doctor remarked as he peeled his gloves off. “You'll need to clean the stitches every day, and he should remain in bed at all times for at least a week, and after that, as much as possible for a few weeks.”

“Whatever he needs,” Gojyo agreed without thinking, hardly able to even look at the stitches. The doctor hummed as he examined his work again, then looked sideways at Gojyo.

“I don't think I've seen him in town. Who is this guy?”

Gojyo grimaced. Damn, he wasn't drunk enough to answer hard questions. “I dunno. I just found him and some girl dying on the ground.”

“A girl?” The doctor glanced back behind him, just as the woman in the bathroom heaved another sob. “You said there was a woman losing a baby. Is that--”

“Said somethin' was dying. I just thought she was on the rag, but she said 'it' was dead.” Gojyo bit his lip, then about-faced and marched to the bathroom door. “Hey, uh, sweetie? Honey? Listen, there's a doctor here. You want I should send him in to help you out?”

The woman didn't answer. Gojyo could still hear her crying, and now that he was close enough, he could hear the retching that punctuated it. He stepped back and motioned to the door, shrugging stupidly, and the doctor didn't wait another second before pushing the door open and entering. He could hear the doctor talking under his breath through the door, then swallowed and stepped back. He edged all the way back to his own bed, to the side of the grey-faced man still as a corpse in his bed.

“She's gonna be okay.” Gojyo took his hand, speaking as if the corpse could hear him and hoping the woman couldn't, on the off-chance he was wrong. “I don't gotta know who the hell you are to want you to live.”

The man moaned a little in his sleep, mouth forming words Gojyo couldn't translate, and Gojyo squeezed his hand and hushed him. Somewhere in the corner of his memory, he recalled Jien patching him up after Mom went off on him, humming him to sleep. If that same tune escaped him now, then nobody would be the wiser.

* * *

 

Gojyo had fallen asleep somewhere in the wee hours, woken only briefly by the doctor telling him the woman had gotten through the worst of it and was resting. He only barely remembered waving the doctor out before slumping back into a stupor.

When he woke again, it was to the smell of rice cooking. He roused and looked around twice, only to see the woman standing in his filthy little kitchen in the same ragged dress she'd first appeared in, damp and stained. She was standing like a zombie in front of his kitchen counter, staring blank-eyed at his battered steamer as the timer ticked down. He hoisted himself from the chair to his feet – damn, that thing sucked on the back! – and shuffled over to stand next to her.

“How ya feelin', sweetie?” He didn't know what else to say to her. She continued to stare at the pot, as if she didn't know he was talking to her. “Uh.” He waited, rocking on his heels. “So, uh, can I ask--”

“It wasn't his,” she whispered, and laid her thin hand over the space between her navel and hipbone. “I'm not sad that it's gone.”

Gojyo bit his lip. Damn, how was he supposed to go from that to 'What's your name?' “Well, uh, guess that's for the best, then. You in any pain?”

She shook her head. “It hurts, but I don't mind.”

Gojyo had brought weirder girls home, but this pretty lady was shooting for the top of the list. “Uh. Sure.” He lifted a hand to touch her shoulder, but noticed her draw herself in, and quickly stuffed his palms into in his pockets. “Were you making breakfast?”

“It's the very least I can do, isn't it?” This garnered a little smile on her pretty, soft mouth, and she flicked her gaze towards him. Her eyes were the same bottle green as the man's. “You did save our lives.” She nodded towards the man in the bed, just visible at their angle to the hall. “He's alive because of you, and that's all that matters to me.”

Gojyo snorted and tightened his hands into fists in his pockets. “What kind of person would just let a guy bleed to death in the rain?”

“The same kind who would steal a woman from her home and...” She broke off, choking on air, then hung her head. “The world is rarely kind. He and I know that better than anyone.”

“Uh, yeah.” Gojyo's chin dropped towards his chest. “Guess so.” Then, he pointedly looked at the pot. “Did you need help or anything?”

She shook her head. "It's nearly done. I ... I was trying to decide if it needed more water." She glanced pointedly to the bed, the corner of which was just visible from where they stood. "He usually cooked."

Gojyo raised an eyebrow, but put on a smile for her. "Yeah? Funny world. I usually cook, too, except it usually doesn't smell this good." He opened the pot and peered in. Rice porridge, just like Jien used to make, but with little green flecks. "Aw, man, was my rice off? I see green--"

"That's a bit of wild onion I found near the river." She laced her fingers at her waist, and damn, when she smiled all cute and shy like she was, it was really damn easy to forget she was a little weird and was clearly fresh off a bad situation. Gojyo didn't forget. Instead, he set his hands on his hips.

“Ain't you clever? You're resourceful. I like it.” Jien would always be extra-nice to him after Mom had beaten him down, too. He extended a hand again, just enough to pat her elbow. Nice and safe. She didn't seem to mind, though she drew her arms in again.

“I'll, ah, I'll get you a bowl.” She whirled around and knelt to search the drawers, as Gojyo automatically turned to the cabinet and got two bowls down.

“You go ahead and dish up, Sweetie.” He put them down, and she turned around, eyebrows raised as if surprised. Perhaps she'd forgotten she wasn't in her own home, where she knew where everything was. “Spoons are right behind you. How 'bout you tell me a little about them wild onions? Lemme tell ya, Sweetie, if I'd known I could eat stuff off the side of the road, I would'a had it way easier when I was a kid.”

That only made her raise her eyebrows again, but she sat and began to detail all of the wild things she would gather from the forest and mountains of their hometown, the mushrooms and herbs, the wild roots and grasses that kept their meager budget on track and their stomachs full. She was nearly smiling again by the time Gojyo's bowl was empty.

Then, she washed the dishes. "You're a kind host; it's the least I can do."

"I thought that was the cooking," Gojyo quipped, but didn't argue when she took his bowl. It was about then he heard the rustle of bed-sheets shifting, and though she stiffened in place like a rabbit at the wrong end of a shotgun, Gojyo returned to his bed to check on the man.

The wounded was grimacing under the bandage on his face, tossing and turning, and Gojyo could only scratch his head. It figured the guy might be having a nightmare after what he'd gone through, but that was a good thing, right? Dreaming meant he was actually sleeping and not just passed out. Gojyo knew the difference. Shrugging to himself, he circled to grab the bandages and antiseptic liquid the doctor had just for him.

Then, he heard it: a soft, mild voice, stretched with exhaustion, murmuring, "Is this hell, then?" A pause, and Gojyo debated answering, until he answered himself: "Hell is mediocre."

Gojyo thought he'd die laughing if he weren't sure he were hearing things, then turned and leaned over the bed to see that his guest was awake, green eyes blinking back confusion, and only more befuddled when Gojyo hung his head over him. "You sure took your time waking up." He grinned, hoping the man had it in him to smile at a joke even at a time like this, but instead, the man considered him with the same blinking eyes, as if he'd said something profound.

Then, he murmured, "Sorry," as if Gojyo were really owed an apology. Somehow, though, it felt kind of good to hear. It echoed right in his head.

Gojyo circled around the bed, supplies in hand, so the man didn't have to tilt his head back and look at him upside down. "So, the good news is, you ain't in hell, you're in my house. The bad news is, rent is cheaper there, so I kinda got the short end of the stick on this deal." He went to pull back the sheets, but the man quickly clutched them. "Hey, no, don't move, you're kinda fucked up right now."

The man inhaled through his nose, then whispered, "You have no idea." He watched, impassive but a little terrified, as Gojyo worked the sheets from his white-knuckled but unsurprisingly flaccid grip and folded them down to expose the wound on his belly. It was as nasty-looking as it had been before it had been stitched up, but Gojyo didn't care much. It didn't have that nasty green tinge his face had gotten when he didn't take care of it, and he'd rather keep this scar clean than worry too much about the shape of it. The man could barely move, though Gojyo could tell he was trying to twist away as Gojyo cleaned around the stitches with a cotton swab and alcohol.

"Sorry if it hurts, but I gotta do it right. Infections are a bitch, y'know." He only stopped when he was completely satisfied that it was clean, ignoring the man's little groans and whimpers bitten back into sealed lips.

"It's... it's fine... It's hideous, isn't it?" He smiled wryly, sadly, and pulled the sheet to cover the wound again. Gojyo just shrugged.

"Whatever it is, you survived it, so far. That's what's most important, s'far as I can tell. Scars mean you survived something nasty, and that's probably gonna be one hell of a scar."

"Hell," the man repeated, laughing bitterly in that way that told Gojyo nothing was funny. He tried to sit, but grimace and quickly gave up. "There... there was a woman with me, wasn't there? If I'm here, then where is--"

There was a soft gasp from the door, and both Gojyo and the wounded man looked to see the woman in the doorway, lingering in the shadows of the hall. Gojyo heard the man inhale sharply, saw his limbs shake, just before he flung a hand out towards her. She shrank back, but their eyes touched even from across the room. For the first time, Gojyo noticed that their faces were nearly mirror-images of one another – the pointed chins, the soft cheekbones that jutted just so, the sharp noses that turned up just a little at the tip, the impossibly green eyes. Gojyo wasn't sure what could be said, but he couldn't stand the electric silence that hung between them.

"She's okay, see." Gojyo stood back half a step. "She talked to the doctor after he patched you up. She's just fine."

"Thank God," the man rasped, then twisted, straining, to look at him. "Can I – can we have a moment of privacy?" He turned again to face her, still wearing an expression as if he were seeing her from across an ocean rather than Gojyo's creaking floorboards.

"Whatever you want. Just -- quit jerkin' around, will ya? You don't want me having to re-do those stitches." He eased the man back and helped prop him up with a wound-up ball of clothes from off the floor. "Holler if you need anything. Name's Gojyo."

"Thank you, Gojyo," the man said automatically, and though Gojyo waited for the reciprocal courtesy of an introduction in response, it didn't come. The woman ran in as Gojyo left, shutting the door behind her, and Gojyo heaved a sigh and trudged back to the main room.

Neither of them knew the walls were paper thin. When Banri had still been living here, Gojyo could count each of his whiskey-dick thrusts into whatever woman he'd brought home (usually on one hand, two if Banri was short on liquor money), but at least the bed wasn't rocking this time. Instead, he could just hear most of their conversation.

"... should have left me to die."

Gojyo didn't want to hear this.

"How can you say that?!" She sounded horrified. "You went through... for me... you went through..."

"... nothing compared to what you..." His voice dwindled, and Gojyo strained to fill in the details, until he spoke a little louder: "... the baby."

There was a beat of silence, and Gojyo felt the entire house go cold. "There was no baby." She raised her voice a little, so that Gojyo could hear the disgust in every word. "It was... it was nothing but muck they pushed into me, forced into me. That was not a baby."

"... what happened to the baby...?"

"What does it matter? It would have been tab--"

"Would have...?"

"It's dead! It's dead and gone and I hope the bits of it I forced out of me are eaten by dogs!" Gojyo flinched that time, and twisted his fingers into his hair. "I... I wanted to die, too. You wouldn't let me."

His reply was so soft Gojyo was surprised he heard it at all: "You didn't deserve to die." He sounded like he was drowning, even through the wall. "It was my fault all this happened... if I'd been there... Or if I'd never met you..."

"You idiot." It was said in that way that Gojyo couldn't tell if it was directed to him or to herself. "You don't know that. If I'd been living there alone, I'd have been out of luck the very same. I never blamed you, G--"

"Don't say that name." He was sounding sharp now. "I'm... I'm not that person. I became someone different... something different..." There was a pregnant, painful pause, and when he spoke again, it was a mournful moan: "I was already dead... Expiration was a formality. Why would you bother resuscitating a corpse?" She didn't say anything for a long minute.

"I didn't. He did."

"K--"

"If you're not that person, then I'm not that person. She died in that dungeon, and you still pulled me from my grave. I'm sorry... It seems in the end, we violated each other as much as we were violated." Gojyo heard the door open and shut a second later, and tried to pretend he'd been resting his eyes. He opened one as he heard her cross past him.

“He doing okay, sweetie?” Gojyo made to sit up. The woman halted, not turning her head.

“He's...” She trailed off, then shook her head. “And I am, too.” She pivoted on her heel and marched to his sink, then began to dig through Gojyo's drawers. Gojyo hurried to his feet.

“What'cha lookin' for? Let me help.” He was getting the idea, more and more, than the pretty lady was not entirely mentally there, actually mentally unstable, and while he could get a doctor who could fix holes in bellies and who could at least coach a woman through a miscarriage, he wasn't sure he knew about doctors who could fix broken hearts or mixed-up heads. The woman didn't answer him, eyes darting to and fro through the drawers until her gaze landed on the scissors.

Gojyo grabbed them just as her fingers touched the handle and held them high over head. She grabbed at them, but he covered the blades with his fingers. “I'm not gonna let you do it, sweetie.” He put steel and iron in his voice. He remembered being small and watching Mom grab at knives and scissors, and Jien talking her back and down and away because neither of them could be sure if she was going to go for him or for herself. Gojyo couldn't tell what she was going to do, but he couldn't risk it.

She gripped his wrist, her little hand surprisingly strong. “I want to bury something.”

“It ain't gonna be you.”

“It won't. I promise.” She squeezed his arm a little tighter. “I want to be a new person. Can I get rid of who I was?”

Gojyo bit his lip, unable to look at her. “I dunno.” He relented a little, letting her pull his arm down. “Tell me what you want to cut.”

She smiled wryly. “The scissors aren't very sharp, you know, I can tell. I wouldn't be able to do myself any serious harm if I tried.” She tugged the bottom of her plaited hair from where it hung over her shoulder and held it out. “This. I'd like to cut it off from the top of my neck.”

Gojyo felt a pang of relief. “Is that all? Sweetie, you gotta make stuff clear from the top.” He knocked a little on his own skull. “I ain't psychic, or even all that bright. Just tell me what you want me to do for ya, okay?”

He sat her in the kitchen chair and unbound her hair. She shivered when he pulled her hair and ran his fingers through it, but held perfectly still as he trimmed all her hair away in careful little cuts. When Gojyo finally let go of her, she gathered up the hair left on the ground around her feet in kinky little coils and carried it all outside, and Gojyo bolted to catch up with her. He could see an overturned patch of earth near where the road met the woods, and she piled her cut-away hair on top of it. She grimaced as he joined her. “I... meant to bury it, but, I was so tired... it's under there.”

The way she said the word 'it' told him all he needed to know. He took his lighter from his pocket. “Cremation okay, sweetie?”

Gojyo wound her hair into a ball and set it on fire, and the pair of them stood side-by-side at the grave of what she'd lost as it burned. He wondered just what she was really mourning – herself, him, or the death of whatever had been between them.

He hadn't brought home corpses, or he hadn't thought so. As the ashes of her hair blew away in the breeze, as she shivered at his side and watched it blow away, and as Gojyo looked back and saw the man staring at them from the bed through the window, Gojyo wondered if he was watching a rebirth or trapped in a long funeral march.

He was sure of this much: he'd probably taken the wrong kind of people home.

 


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gojyo has lots of questions about his curious houseguests. When he tries to ask, though, he just keeps finding more and more questions, and not all of them are aimed at his mysterious acquaintances.

**2:**

She was Sweetie. She never objected to it, and eventually even began to smile when Gojyo said it.

Sweetie tried to cook, but she tended to burn things, but hell, Gojyo couldn't say he was much better at making anything more complicated than rice. She was good at finding mushrooms and wild onions, and when Gojyo did make his brief escapes to the market for supplies, she asked for tofu, because that could be eaten raw, and vegetables for soup. Her soup was perfectly fine, and Gojyo didn't mind eating it twice a day. Her appetite was dismal, no matter how Gojyo praised her cooking and encouraged her to eat, and Gojyo often found himself dumping out barely-touched portions.

Sweetie would play mah jongg with him, too. She was preternaturally good at kicking his ass, at that; perceptive, bright eyes dodging through the tiles and arranging them in her mind with ease. Gojyo could see her mind working, but wished he could see the patterns she was making. There was something very special and clever about her, he could sense it every time her hair slid across her eyes like a cloud covering a clover field, obscuring her brightness for just long enough that Gojyo was sure there was something inside of her he would never see.

The few times Gojyo could get out to play cards that first week, whatever he didn't spend on food or medical supplies went into buying clothes Sweetie could wear. Going from the house to the market was daunting for Sweetie, and she went green at the very notion. Instead, he got her to write down her size so he could show the women at the second-hand clothes stall in the market, and brought back a few simple, plain frocks, but used the few leftover coins he had to buy her a few colorful ribbons she could use as belts or in what was left of her honey-brown hair. Every girl liked to feel pretty, right? Gojyo had no idea what made Sweetie feel good about herself, but he wanted her to have it. Clean clothes helped, anyway. The ragged dress she arrived in vanished the moment Gojyo stopped looking at it, and while she wasn't some striking beauty in silk flitting around his floor, there was at least a little bit of confidence in her step, especially when she did tie a ribbon into a band through her hair. She seemed to wring her hands together less, anyway.

Sweetie was no good at poker. She was terrible at hiding how she felt. Most of the time, it was nervous, for sure. She tended to bite her lip when she was thinking, she'd grip her forehead in both hands when she was worried, she stomped her little feet when frustrated, and the hand-wringing, holy shit, Gojyo had never thought a woman could crush her own hands like that, but damn Sweetie did try.

She was at her worst whenever Gojyo excused himself to go tend to her friend.

"Can I help, at all?" Her knuckles were white with the force of her own grip, tiny feet all but nailed to the ground and rooting her as stark-straight, pale and shivery as a birch tree. Gojyo would put on a warm, 'everything's okay, Mom' smile and ease her back, his big hands on her narrow shoulders.

"How 'bout I let ya know if I need anything? Hey, why don't you go make sure we got enough for all of us to eat tonight, I can go out and get anything we might after." He'd shoo her off until she broke eye contact as sharply as one might break a cookie and ease back, and Gojyo could go check in on the wounded man.

Gojyo's patient seemed to spend most of his days sleeping, which was fine with Gojyo, because that meant he wasn't moving, which meant he wouldn't tear his stitches. Gojyo was very careful about cleaning the wound -- "You're fastidious," as the man put it, while observing. "You're treating me with much more care than I would myself."

"Yeah, well." Gojyo paused to rub the alcohol into a deep ridge, eliciting a bitten-back whimper from the other man. He sucked his cheeks in, feeling his own scar through the inside of his mouth, then getting a little deeper into the crevice. "See, the way I look at it, when I take someone home, I treat 'em real good."

The man laughed a little through his nose. "Is that how you look at it?"

"Yeah." Gojyo grinned, flicking his gaze up to catch the man's eye. "Consider yourself lucky. You're the first and last man I ever take to bed."

The man did laugh out loud for a moment at that. It was a nice sound that echoed in every crevasse in Gojyo's ear, ringing like music.

Over the days, Gojyo worked on helping him sit up to eat, then stand up. It was a huge relief when he was able to stagger to the chamber pot Gojyo had set up (i.e., the convenient empty bucket Gojyo had swiped from the wharf near the river) on his own power. It took a week before the scar was healed up enough that Gojyo would trust him to stand, and it was about around the same time that he began to sleep much less.

Gojyo had just gotten the bowls out, the two he'd had and a third he'd had to buy all lined up on the counter as Sweetie tasted the soup. "Is it ready?" He leaned over her shoulder and took a whiff, keeping just a little distance between them, and she nodded.

"It's as edible as it always is. I'm only sorry I can't do better for you."

"It's still better than I'd do for me." Gojyo shrugged and nipped in with the biggest spoon he owned, dishing out full bowls for himself and Sweetie and a bowl with much more broth than vegetable and meat chunks for the man. Maybe she'd finish her meal, maybe he would actually have it in him to chew and swallow. Gojyo moved her bowl and his own to the table, but just as he went to take the man's bowl to him, there was a rattle at the door, and there he was, slowly shuffling from the bedroom with his hand bracing the wall. Each step was heavy, deliberate, but steady. He halted at the corner where the hall met the rest of the house and glanced between Gojyo and Sweetie, his gaze less than focused, but Gojyo felt him make eye contact.

“I... Is there room for one more?”

Gojyo yanked his shitty armchair from the living room to his usual spot and pushed the good kitchen chair to the empty space. “I made room. Have a seat, buddy, I'd be happy for you to join us.”

The man made eye contact with Sweetie, trying to hold her gaze, as if trying to say something with his face with words his mouth didn't dare to form. She shrugged after a moment, breaking eye contact. “Please don't push yourself.”

He bowed a little, though Gojyo had to bite back a scold as he bent his waist. “Thank you,” he whispered, and staggered the rest of the way to the chair, dropped into it as if his legs had given out, and lowered his head. “I'm grateful for the meal, as ever. I missed your cooking, K--” He caught himself short as she flinched away, and lowered his head further. “I... I did.”

“Liar.” She laughed into her hand and put his bowl in front of him. “You're the better chef between us, I only get by as needed.”

“I'll cook when I'm able to stand for more than a minute or two at a time.” Gojyo could see him smiling at the plate, but his eyes were wide as if he were on the verge of tears. “I've missed cooking for you, too, and I will be happy to cook for our host. I'm grateful to you, Gojyo.” The man couldn't look at him, and Gojyo settled into his chair, trying to catch his eye.

“It's what any half-decent guy would do, buddy.” He pushed the spoon towards him. “Come on, eat up. You're gonna need your strength if I'm ever gonna taste that gourmet cooking of yours.”

The man cracked a smile, and took a full bite, then chewed and swallowed. By the time his bowl was empty, Gojyo could tell he'd wanted to complain about how little meat he got, and told himself he'd make sure his new friend got his share at the next meal. That was what friends did for each other. Buddies.

In a matter of hours, he was Buddy.

Buddy was still very quiet, and though moving was still hard, it got easier for him by the day. His stitches were well set, and he was able to mostly sit and stand on his own unless the air got thick and humid. He would emerge from the bedroom for meals, or when he heard Gojyo take out the mahjong set or start shuffling cards. Despite being well enough to move, it seemed venturing out of the "comfort" of Gojyo's cramped little bedroom was almost too much sometimes.

Buddy didn't mind Gojyo's old clothes, and Gojyo didn't mind loaning them. Quite the opposite, really. When he took the laundry into town, he noticed that buttons that had been missing were replaced, worn hems were mended, elbows and knees were patched, and good goddamn if somehow or other, a rip in the crotch of his favorite flannel around-the-house pants hadn't been fixed so well Gojyo barely remembered he'd ripped them. Gojyo had no idea where the guy was finding needle and thread, and always the exact right colors and at least similar styles of buttons. He was just a miracle worker. It was almost uncanny, and Gojyo found himself stuck between grateful and bewildered by that weird, random ongoing act of kindness or whatever Buddy was going for here.

Buddy was fastidious, too. That was a word Gojyo knew now, thanks to him, because those hundred-yuan words poured from his smooth lips as easily as champagne from a fluted bottleneck, but he had the patience of a teacher when Gojyo would stare at him, dumbfounded, after he'd said them: "It is a word that describes one who pays great attention to detail, which is why it applied so neatly with your deliberate attention to my wound." Buddy had smiled at that, then returned to sorting Gojyo's garbage. "Tonight is burnable garbage collection night, isn't it?"

"Ah, he always remembers," Sweetie answered, tapping her own forehead with her palm. Gojyo just shook his head.

"I dunno, I think they just take all the bags on Thursday."

Buddy had leveled him with a stare that could freeze hard liquor solid, and for a moment, Gojyo felt like he was being suffocated. then, Buddy returned to the garbage with a demure little giggle. "It's our duty to make certain we recycle responsibly. We only have the one Earth, it would not do to overfill the landfills with things that could be handled more efficiently and in an environmentally conscientious manner. Ah, and please do mind using beer cans as ashtrays; not only does it make recycling the cans more difficult, it's a bad habit." He'd smiled, but it was a shaky thing as even in what seemed like something tremendously normal for him was made difficult by weakness. He put the bravest face he could on, even as Gojyo crouched down to help him. It was rare he showed pain, so Gojyo couldn't let something that seemed to please him hurt. 

That was another thing: Buddy had one hell of a poker face. Gojyo could never tell what he was thinking, and he'd never lost so many rounds in a row. "You should stop letting me win," he'd tease with a twinkle in his eye, and Sweetie would giggle.

"If you don't push him, he won't recover. I thought you were good when it was just you and I playing." She gently cocked her head, that twinkle in her eye obscuring the tiny hint of shadow that lived in the center of her expression. "Didn't you say that gaming was how you made your money?"

"It is," Gojyo agreed, shaking his head and refusing to admit that he wasn't going easy on either of them. Buddy smiled contently, shrugging.

"Perhaps he turns on his luck at the tables. There's never shame in losing, of course.”

“Hm.” Sweetie flicked her eyes away at that, and Buddy lowered his chin.

“Rarely, at least.” Then, he folded his cards. “My apologies; I'm tired.” He tried to get up, but Gojyo caught him wincing and put his cards down too.

“I gotcha. Lemme help.” Buddy whispered gratitude as Gojyo worked his arm around Buddy's armpit and worked him to his feet. Gojyo could see him trying not to wince for the entire walk back to the bed.

Buddy's poker face rarely betrayed anything, but pain was one of them. He did his best to paste a smile on over the pain that still lingered. However, the pain was still there, faintly twitching in the corners of his mouth and the sharp jerks of his eyes, and it wasn't just in his scar. Gojyo wasn't sure what he could do, especially when it seemed to flare up.

When it rained, he would retreat to the bed and pull the covers up all the way over his face, or bury his head in the pillow, as if trying to block it out. Gojyo wanted to ask Sweetie, but the forlorn way she stared at the wall made it clear that the rain hurt her, too. Gojyo couldn't make himself ask.

He hadn't even convinced himself to ask their names. How could he ask how these two had ended up in a puddle of blood in his path?

* * *

It wasn't like he was stupid. He had figured out a little of it. Their first conversation gave Gojyo a real good hint about what had happened.

Apparently, whatever Sweetie had buried would have looked a lot like him if it hadn't died in her belly. He'd heard her say as much. He also got the distinct idea she hadn't wanted it there, not for a second, and that gave him a nasty inkling that maybe there had been a lot of things inside of her she hadn't wanted there.

Gojyo sometimes heard about the youkai clans who still lived separately from humans doing that sort of thing. They ran their territory like a mafia might, offering “protection” in exchange for certain sacrifices. Money. Food. Pretty girls. Sweetie, for being kind of weird, was beautiful and willowy, with a girlish face, and though he could barely remember what she looked like before hacking her hair off, he could imagine that her long locks had made her look very appealing. Something to hold on to, as Banri put it (and as Gojyo recalled with a turn of his gut). She'd been grabbed, Gojyo thought, they'd taken her, and taken everything they could from her.

Fuck, that was terrible. He didn't even want to ask her, not even out of morbid curiosity, because he couldn't make her relive that.

The real question, then, was what had come between her getting taken away and the two of them ending up at his feet.

Buddy's injury was a clue, anyway. Gojyo had done his share of fucking around with gangbangers from his place on their periphery, but he knew for damn sure that nobody should mess with a youkai clan.

"Must've been one hell of a knife," Gojyo remarked, more to himself than anything, as he helped clean it out again. The scar was forming as well as a scar like this could, jagged and puckered, still flushed red against the pale beige of his belly, but clean enough. Gojyo hadn't had to squeeze any white, yellow, or green muck out of it like he had when he was seven and terrified and feverish, so he had to be doing a good job, at least. Buddy grimaced anyway – he couldn't possibly know how bad the pain could have been only how bad it was – moving a hand to cover the healing wound and inadvertently pushing Gojyo away.

"I didn't see it. I was caught off-guard. You don't have to--"

"I do." Gojyo insistently pushed his hand back in through Buddy's defenses, finishing cleaning each crease. "You don't gotta be shy, I had my whole hand in the damn cut, y'know?" Buddy's cheeks pinked at that, and though he squirmed, it was unconscious and futile. "You push a guy's guts back in, and then he gets all shy on you, huh?"

"I didn't ask you to do it."

This caught Gojyo up short, and he shot Buddy what had to be a horrified gape. Buddy quickly smiled back, as solid as concrete to patch over Gojyo's gape. “But I am grateful. There's... I'd like to think I've got a little bit more to do.”

“Yeah?” Gojyo wiped the last of the disinfectant fluid off of the scar. “Well, I hope so. I don't know what it is you wanna do, but we've gotten this far together, so I'd like to get you the rest of the way back to being on your feet.” He got up at that. “I'm gonna wash my hands. You need anything?”

Buddy demurred with a subtle shake of the head, and Gojyo withdrew. There was a lot of stuff to unpack between the two of them, stuff that he was pretty sure he didn't actually want to touch. He hadn't _wanted_ to stuff his hand into a guy's guts. He just did it because it had been the right thing to do. Asking all these questions about how they'd gotten there, that was just being nosy. Of course he was curious, but just because he wanted something didn't make it okay, and he also had a bad feeling that if he dug too deep, just like when he'd been up to his wrist in entrails, he might not like what he found.

He knew what he needed to know. Sweetie got snatched, Buddy went after her, and both of them got messed up in the process. What Gojyo really wanted to know was why. Who were they to each other that Buddy would put himself up against an army of youkai to rescue her?

* * *

He asked them, separately.

“So, uh, are you two brother and sister?”

Buddy had nodded, hanging his head and clenching his hands around the edge of the blanket. “My other half. We were twins, separated when we were young.”

Sweetie had demurred. “No, no; even if we were related, we never knew each other when we were children.” She looked past Gojyo, then down to the pot she was watching too intently. “I … I had been separated from a brother when I was small, but I don't remember him, and … We weren't raised as siblings, how could we be expected to act as them?”

He asked them, separately again. “Wait, so were you lovers?”

Sweetie had smiled, her motions slowing just a little as she stirred the rice in the pot, looking just a little wistful. “Yes. When we were together, I felt whole, like he'd been what I was missing all my life.” She paused, then sighed and put the spoon aside, wringing her fingers. “And then, when we were apart, I feel as though I changed shape, was chiseled away into something too small and broken for him. We... we _were_ lovers.”

Buddy's face had tightened, and again, he didn't lift his head. “No. No, we were... we were...” He hesitated, then shook his head, words coming out in fragments and crumbs like a rock of salt falling apart all over his lap, “I'm not someone who can love. Not like she needed. I did everything I could for her, but... I'm not deserving of being called her lover.”

What they both said, though, was what really struck Gojyo:

“We were closer than two people should be. We each would have made any sacrifice for the other's sake.”

“That's why I did it.” Buddy scrubbed his palm up his face, and Gojyo noticed him drag the crease of his index finger over the shell of his ear and the three silver clasps there. “I may have been a shallow thing, but I was devoted. I would have killed for her, died for her, sold my own soul for whatever pittance it was worth. When I thought I'd failed her, I would have welcomed death as relief and redemption.”

“That's why I...” Sweetie had broken off there, her face falling. “I hadn't wanted to come back. I could no longer deserve his devotion, as polluted and tainted as I was. How could I deserve someone who would give up his very humanity for me when I couldn't even preserve my womanhood for him.”

Gojyo had found himself saying the same thing to both of them:

“It ain't like that.”

“Hey.” He'd caught Sweetie by the chin, daring to touch her for the first time, and she'd gasped as the rough pads of his fingers landed on her soft jaw. “When a man loves a woman, no matter who or what she is to him, all he cares about is that soft little heart and that smile. He doesn't care about what happened to your body, not if you loved each other like you said. You ain't too damaged, not for love like that.”

Sweetie had gasped, but she didn't pull away from him.

To Buddy, he'd added, all the while laboring under the weight of his stoic stare, “You can't just say for yourself, 'this person can't love me.' They gotta be the ones to tell you, and with all you gave up for her, if that ain't love, I don't know what is.”

Buddy had looked at him that time as if he had said something in an alien tongue.

They'd both responded to him the same way: wide green eyes and a whispered: “Is... is that what you think?” Then, they'd smiled, Sweetie with that wobbly look as if she were doing anything but smiling she'd be crying, and Buddy with that tight expression in the corners of his lips that said he'd rather scream. “You must have had some wonderful lover to teach you that.”

In the aftermath of those conversations, Buddy asleep in the aftermath of having his bandages changed again and Sweetie putting the clean dishes away after the evening meal, Gojyo went out to his front porch to sit and smoke his every last cigarette down to the butt as he mulled it over in his head, everything he'd seen, everything he'd said.

He'd had a brother. It had been a long time, but he'd had a brother. Hell, he and Banri had practically been brothers too, but it had been a long time since he'd been around, either. He'd loved Jien and Banri had been an awesome friend, but they were damn well gone now.

He'd had lovers. Plenty of them. Usually only for a night or two, a week at best, but he'd always thought of variety as exciting, or maybe he'd just figured it was easier to let go of someone before he was let go of himself.

He'd never had anyone that close to him. He'd just told them everything he'd wanted in another person, and they had gazed back at him as if he were insane. Whatever their love had been was something foreign to Gojyo, something he'd never even imagined was what love was like.

Maybe he didn't know what love was. He didn't think there was anyone out there who would die for him, or who would die if they thought they weren't good enough for him. Gojyo couldn't even imagine that, not even after walking up on the bloody aftermath.

All he could do was sit and smoke, staring at the sky and trying not to imagine Sweetie and Buddy's morbid smiles and the dregs of their sorrow that still steeped in their every expression.

“Gojyo?” Sweetie was behind him in the doorway, and Gojyo blew the stream of smoke off of his last cigarette, smashed the butt in the knot in the deck board next to him, and let out a sigh.

“I'm outta smokes.” He crushed the empty pack as if to show he wasn't lying, even if the excuse he was about to make was. “Sorry, I'm gonna have to run out and get more. We need anything at the store?”

Sweetie was quiet, her gaze piercing Gojyo's heart as sure as a bullet might. “N... no. Er, do we have any money in the house?”

“I might have to play a few rounds of poker to get the scratch for my itch, if you catch my drift.” He turned long enough to wink at her, then hoisted himself to a stand facing the road. “Your friend should be alright on his own for a little while, right? I'll be back in a bit.”

“Gojyo, er, about our conversation earlier.”

“Oh, yeah.” Gojyo stuffed his hands in his pockets and kept his chin low. “Uh, sorry if I was being nosy. My bad.” He flashed her the kind of smile that made waitresses giggle and scold him before he stopped pretending to pay attention to them. “I'll mind my manners, next time.”

Sweetie wrung her hands together. “That's not what I...” Gojyo turned and was already walking away. He didn't want any more explanations, any more questions. He could sense Buddy watching him stroll down the path away from his own home, leaving all of that behind. He didn't need to think about it.

He hadn't thought about why he was bringing them home when he did it. He hadn't cared how or why they'd gotten there then, either. They would probably both go off to die whenever they did feel like leaving, and Gojyo had long since realized that the more he knew about something, the more it could hurt him when it blew up in his face, if only because he'd have that extra second to know the hurt was coming and the sting of knowing just why it hurt in the aftermath.

He knew that he only knew how bad the pain he'd already been through could be, and couldn't imagine an ache he hadn't gone through already. He did know that his scars could be deeper, a lot deeper than his own wrist or his scissors or a kitchen knife could go, and he didn't want to know how much that would hurt when it hit him.

A night away, detached, was what he needed, before the cords that bound them together snared him and dragged him down too.

 


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gojyo stumbles home into his strange life, only to find things getting stranger and stranger every moment. Not necessarily in a bad way, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is closer to a Gojyo/Kanan story than 858, and really, it's a 5/8/K, but happy 5/8 anyway!

**3:**

Gojyo couldn't see straight, but that was about where he'd wanted to be. Blind drunk, stupid drunk, so drunk he couldn't be sure he'd wake up in the morning. His hair felt greasy from women petting on him all night, but he couldn't even be bothered to push him off, just smiling and laughing as he glided mindlessly through card games and little glasses of whiskey. He'd wanted to turn his brain off. It didn't much matter if it ever came back on. He wouldn't have to think about stupid shit if he pickled his brain good enough.

Like how getting this damn drunk was actually a horrible idea, because if he didn't die, he'd have to live with the hangover and whatever else came after.

Not thinking about love, the hows and whys, the why-nots.

Luckily, the path home was straight enough without him having to see it, but getting the key into the slot was a lot more of an endeavor. Each blink and squint felt like it was dark for far too long, and he thought he might have fallen asleep for a second after he finally got the key in and turned the knob. Somewhere, his lizard brain realized that he was going to wake up on the floor again, and he vaguely hoped that no badgers raided his kitchen again. Just as he got the door open and dared lift his foot to take that last step in and collapse with his last thought being 'this might actually be comfier than the armchair,' but as he felt himself falling forward, two soft hands caught his cheeks.

“Here you are,” Sweetie whispered, and though Gojyo felt his consciousness dying, something in him made him stay awake. “You look like a ship come in from a tsunami. Come on...” An arm snaked its way under his, not Sweetie's, not thin enough, but there was a soft grunt from beside him.

“Ah, he's heavy. I'm sorry – could you – K-”

“Yes, of course.” Sweetie and Buddy both propped him between them, and Gojyo felt their compassion like a brick against his glass heart.

“M'sorry,” he mumbled, hanging his head low and squinting his way through the darkness of his home as they guided him in, both of them stumbling under his weight.

"There's nothing to apologize for." Buddy had said it from his left, strained and weary from the effort. "You just happen to be a lot of man, and I'm not much of one at present."

"Hush," Sweetie said under her breath, "One can only expect so much of anybody."

He wanted to protest, to tell them to put him down, they'd only hurt themselves, but he realized that when he'd carried them in, they would have told him the exact same thing. Instead, he keeled towards his chair, only to hear Buddy grunt in protest and hold him back.

"Now, now, not there; this way."

Gojyo found them leading him to the bedroom, and somewhere in the murk of the room and his muddled consciousness, his own bed. All three of them collapsed onto the mattress, Buddy panting his exhaustion and Sweetie gasping in his ear.

"He is heavy!" She laughed with sharp surprise, then tried to push Gojyo properly onto the bed. "Take his shoes off, won't you? I'll move the wastebasket over in case he's ill in the night."

"Ah, the fool... yes." He felt them moving around them, but found himself boneless with inebriation, legs and feet limp and pliant as one of them got his shoes and moved him fully onto the bed, and though he tried to roll over towards the wall, he felt Buddy's palm, broader than Sweetie's but no less smooth, on his cheek. “No, no; stay. Stay right here.”

Something thick that tasted like iron bubbled into Gojyo's throat, and he swallowed hard and rolled his face down into the mattress, only to feel Buddy's hand slide down his back.

“It wasn't our intention to harm you such that you felt the need to wound yourself. I didn't realize...” Buddy was quiet, and though Gojyo clung on the cliff of that word, the little circles he was rubbing on his back grounded him. “You were only curious, I--”

“Not now.” Sweetie stayed Buddy's hand, but Gojyo felt her fingers twine with his against his back. “Let him rest. We can say whatever needs to be said in the morning.”

“Hm.” Buddy sounded doubtful, but deflected with a laugh. “I suppose it has been rather more certain that I will be waking up most mornings, at least. Let's let him sleep.”

Gojyo felt immensely tired, and not just from the alcohol deflating his brain. However, he was conscious enough to feel a soft, warm little body stretching out next to his, and another on the other side of his bed.

“He won't mind … or, do you think he will?”

“He's already taken me to bed once, so he said, I'm sure returning the favor won't be a problem.” Buddy's arm stretched over Gojyo's back so he could just touch his hand to Sweetie's shoulder where it pressed against Gojyo's breast. “I've been selfish with the only mattress in the house, and there's room for more than one. Rest easy.”

“Thank you,” Sweetie whispered, and Gojyo's heart raced for a split second as she cuddled into his breast, before slowing down again, snared deep in the drink. At least he was only barely aware of just how he'd been snared in their tangled web. He could let himself fall asleep between them.

As drunk as he was, he didn't have much choice.

The next thing Gojyo knew, he was opening his eyes into a room barely lit by a yellow and pink dawn and a cold spot on his chest. Buddy had somehow ended up with his head at the opposite side of the bed and rolled over towards the wall, curled on his side with his knees up to his belly, and Gojyo was still in the middle, partially on his side with his half-crushed pillow mashed against his face. He sat up slowly, blinking around the room and barely recognizing it.

When had it started to smell more like soap than cigarettes? Was it always this big, or did it just look bigger because someone had come through and folded his clothes up? Had his bed always been this soft and warm? When had the two people he'd brought into his life on a whim started changing his life back?

The door opened, and Sweetie tiptoed in, dressed only in one of Gojyo's baggy old shirts that hit her thigh. She gasped when Gojyo caught her eye, and he sat up slow and careful so he wouldn't jostle Buddy behind him.

“Sorry, Sweetie,” he rasped, throat raw, and Gojyo actually tasted his mouth for the first time since waking up and grimaced. “Did I wake you up?”

“I wish I could lie to you, but you did, yes.” She hurried to the bed to whisper a little softer, already pushing him back down to the bed though he'd barely begun to rise. “You were sick, and we both wanted to ensure you didn't aspirate your own bile.”

“Fuck, I woke him, too?”

“Briefly. Someone needed to hold the bucket, and someone needed to hold your hair. Ah, wait a moment.” She patted his leg and rose again, rushing out. He felt pinned by that little touch, and found himself staring at his bare knees. Shit, he was a fucking asshole, getting all hung up on stupid love shit. This was what he got for getting nosy, getting involved.

Sweetie was back with a mug of water and a piece of what looked like gummy candy, but that tasted bitter, sour, and sweet on his tongue. "Crystallized ginger for your stomach, and you should rehydrate. My friend knows a bit of homeopathic medicine, he said this will help."

"Thanks, Sweetie." The ginger got sweeter the longer he chewed it. Gojyo swallowed it, then gulped down the water. She smiled in the way Gojyo only saw in a doting mother to a young child, and he couldn't stop the wave of embarrassment that rose up through him. "You didn't have to do this, y'know. Any of this." He shrugged and shifted away from her, though she moved the hand she'd laid on his knee with him.

"No, but does anyone have to do anything, really?" She rubbed his knee, and Gojyo realized she was looking him in the eye, captivating him on the spot. “We are born, we breathe, we die, sooner or later. What matters is what we do in between, the people we spend that time with.” She shook her head a little. “I spent such a long time alone. So did he. And when we found each other, my perspective on everything changed. And then, when we were torn asunder... the world we thought was made whole was ripped asunder, and our perspectives had to change again. That was when you came into our view.”  Her hand slid up Gojyo's leg to his face, touching his scars again. “The conversation we had... No, all the conversations we've had...”

“Hey.” Gojyo stayed her hand. “Sweetie--”

“But we ignored that you were talking, too, and you can only talk from your own experiences.” Her thumb ran down the length of his scars. “Has anyone ever loved you?”

Gojyo flinched. He couldn't help it. Sweetie saw, and quickly shook her head. “Ah – that came out wrong; he--” She nodded towards Buddy where he was curled up still-- “He always said I could be too blunt. What I meant to say was... You... you must not have experienced love like the two of us have. You asked both of us what we meant to each other, didn't you?” She halted, trying to study his face, and he quickly averted his gaze down to her crossed legs. “These walls are thin, but we don't mind that you asked. Did... did what we say surprise you?”

“Well.” Gojyo clicked his tongue, trying to shore himself up and shrugging his shoulders back. “Everyone goes through stuff differently.”

Sweetie was quiet for the breadth of a heartbeat. “Yes, and you surprised us, too. Your perspective, Gojyo, you fascinate me. Both of us.” Her thumb ran down the crevice of his scar, and Gojyo had to suppress another shiver. “Who did this to you?”

Gojyo put his hand over hers and moved it back down to the bed, smiling and shaking his head. “Come on, Sweetie. Accidents happen. Besides, I'm taboo, ain't I?” His mouth tasted sour again, but though he wanted to scream, he kept smiling. Sweetie's eyes went wide as if she couldn't see his mask at all. “I'm a hex, everyone like me is. I got a feeling you know that.”

“No.” She inhaled sharply. “You... you heard – but... ah, these walls really are paper thin.” She shook her head slowly, lips curving without mirth. “I should have known. We really will have to ensure there's no trouble with the insulation when it becomes cold, who knows what could come through these walls.” She grabbed onto his hand again. “When I said that... I wasn't my best self, and perhaps I had the wrong perspective. After all, I'd dabbled in the taboo long before that disaster ever overcame us.” He noticed her glancing over his shoulder to Buddy again, but she squeezed his fingers, then clasped her other hand around his. “Taboo is only taboo if one says it is. I don't think you're taboo, or cursed, and anyone who's told you that you are doesn't know what you really are. Neither of us think that way.” She moved closer to him, touching his scars again and capturing his face in a warm, soft hand. “Did anyone help you heal these scars, Gojyo?”

Gojyo couldn't answer, and her face softened. She leaned in, sliding her hand away, but kissing over the old lines. “Someone should have at least kissed it better.”

She was almost in his lap now, and if Gojyo's heart hadn't just begun to race like he had been running for days, like a small child fleeing a monster screaming, and when she kissed his scar again, he felt like he'd stopped short into safety, caught in a set of warm arms. He also felt that same stupid instinct that rushed through him whenever a pretty woman paid him attention sending blood rushing through him in all of the wrong ways.

“Hey. Stop.” He backed up and found he was already breathless, and she was studying him as if he were on the other end of a microscope. He felt incredibly small, caught between his familiar instinct of wanting a beautiful woman and taking whatever was offered, and the cold hard knowledge that this woman had had plenty taken from her already. He shook his head, just as she glanced down and her jaw went slack. "I, uh, m'sorry, Sweetie, I'm only a man, y'know?" He moved to get up, knowing that this weird humiliation would chase him until he could put some space between them, deal with his stupid, stupid dick, and pretend this never happened. However, she laid her hand on his knee again, and he couldn't move.

"It's alright; it's not as if I'm unfamiliar with the workings of a man's body." She smiled reassuringly and squeezed his knee. "I'm not offended." She leaned in close and spoke, low, smooth, and just a little coy, "Quite the opposite, Gojyo. It's nice to know that even though you know where I've been, you still think me worthy of your attentions."

"Sweetie, it ain't like that," He tried to protest again, but too gun-shy about jostling her even a little, not wanting to lift a finger to move her more than he had to. He glanced back for a second to the other sleeper in the bed – still sleeping, thank whatever was worth thanking – then faced her and waved his hands in front of himself, as if he could push his libido as far away from Sweetie as he'd kept it so far. "I just -- that guy down there, he's got a mind of his own, he don't do much thinkin' except the things he thinks about, and -- I, big me, big brain Gojyo, I don't wanna hurt you, believe me. I'll go to the couch, or the chair--"

"-- Or stay. I don't think you would hurt me." She slid her hand from his knee to the apex of his legs and the firm bulge tenting the crotch of his worn-thin boxer shorts. "I don't think you'd let him do so, either. I think if you're willing to give me a proper introduction, I'd like to meet him." It was Gojyo's turn to go slack-jawed, and his chin practically hit the floor. She smiled and kissed him again, closer to his mouth. "I think you could be part of my world, too."

That was an invitation, sure as if it were in fancy calligraphy Gojyo couldn't read but that screamed its message loud and clear. He turned his mouth just enough to kiss her on the lips, and she gently pecked over his mouth, then to his nose and forehead. Her fine little fingers traced lines and swirls up his chest until they landed on his shoulder, and she pushed him back a little to ruck his shirt halfway up his chest. He took the initiative to remove it the rest of the way, and she began to work the buttons on her borrowed nightshirt loose. Gojyo tossed his tee aside and moved to help her, until she captured one of his hands between hers and turned it over. She looked disappointed for a split second, then kissed his palm.

"Such big hands, I worry they might be clumsy."

"Hey, at least give 'em a chance. I've got some practice under my belt that I'd love to apply under yours." It was the cheesy sort of line he saved for one night stands, and he got a soft little giggle out of her for it, plus he got the rest of her buttons off as she covered her mouth, then smoothed her hair back behind her ears.

“As long as those big hands can be gentle, they're welcome to do what they please.” She rubbed her nose to his, then slid into his lap to straddle his thighs. “Please touch me.”

Gojyo obliged, first running the pads of his fingers down her cheek. He aimed to please his lovers, and Sweetie here was a special case. He knew she'd probably had one lover who'd treated her good, but there'd been at least one, if not a few, who hadn't been good to her. The most important thing when he made love to someone was to make them feel as wanted and adored as he'd always wanted for himself. He touched her with reverence, with all the honor of a man who knew he was at the feet of a goddess, if he were even a little devout. She tilted her face into his touch, relaxed and at ease, nothing like the tense, hand-wringing ball of nerves she could be outside of this space. He stroked down her face, then let his thumb trace the contour of her breast. She shivered a little, then giggled softly. “You're giving me chills!”

“Am I?” He glanced down, to see her nipples, soft and peachy pink, little rose petals on the soft mounds of her breasts, and found them firm and peaked with excitement. He couldn't help but smirk with satisfaction, but he caught her eye just as he leaned in. “Mind if I help warm you back up a little?” She nodded, eyes bright with anticipation, and he bent his tongue down and flicked it across the tip of the nipple. She gasped sharply, her hand tightening where she steadied himself on his shoulder, and he quickly lifted his face to catch her eye. “Too much?”

“N-no... it's... it's sensitive.” She had winced her eyes shut, and her fingers were shaking a little now. Gojyo rubbed little circles over her ribs. “G-Gojyo.”

“Shh, shh. I'm gonna treat you good, sweet thing.” He kissed her breastbone a few times, waiting for her to relax under his hands, then closed his mouth around her nipple again, laving the tongue over the tip. She whined, squirming just a little as he cupped her other breast in his palm and caressed it, then teased her other nipple with his thumb. She only squirmed a little more, and Gojyo could feel her sex was damp against his thigh. He couldn't repress a soft groan of satisfaction, and she gasped as his tongue vibrated against her nipple. He licked and sucked a few more times, a little more eager now, until she gasped and squeezed his arms.

“Oh, please, I can't – Please touch me!” She was breathless, and when Gojyo looked her in the face, she was pink, eyes fever-bright.  That was what Gojyo liked to see, and he couldn't help but grin with all his teeth.

“Tell me if it's too much.” He braced her shoulder now and slid his right hand down her waistline to the join of her legs. She stilled, catching her breath as she straightened her spine. Gojyo could sense her anticipation as he slid his thumb into the crevice of her pussy and found the little pearl of her clit, damp and pulsing, waiting for him. He rubbed his thumb against it, back and forth, back and forth, picking up speed slowly. She tried to force herself to stoic, lips pressed tight but eyes wide and glimmering as he teased her little button, until she couldn't keep herself still, squeezing her eyes shut, pretty eyelashes trembling, and Gojyo slipped his pinkie finger down and across the lips of her warm pussy, then into the gap. Her mouth fell open into an 'oh,' and she actually moaned aloud when he slipped the tip of his finger past her soft pussy lips and in.

Then, there was a piteous noise from over their shoulder, a matching moan, and all of a sudden Gojyo remembered that there was a third person in the bed. Gojyo withdrew his hand and craned his neck around to see Buddy curled in tighter and shivering. Sweetie's smile vanished, and she slid off of Gojyo's thigh and crawled around him to tap his shoulder.

“You should have said something.”

Buddy's response was a faint rasp: “I didn't want to interrupt. You sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

Gojyo's heart twanged in his chest, but Sweetie pursed her lips and gave him a shake. “If I'd known you were awake, I would have invited you to join us.” She tipped her gaze back to Gojyo for a moment, then down to him again. “But I know you're still healing. I kept us at that end of the bed for a reason.”

“I don't want you to miss out on something you want. You deserve to be--”

“Really, now.” She huffed, then pushed his shoulder to make him face her. His face was red, and Gojyo could see that he was trying to crush a hard-on that actually put his own dick to shame a little. She leaned down and whispered, though not so quietly Gojyo couldn't hear: “I know you admire our host a little too. We've shared things before. Do you want to be invited in?”

“That's not—”

Before he could finish his protest, she kissed his cheek, then turned back to Gojyo. Before she could even prompt him, Gojyo found himself turning and studying Buddy, as he rolled over, those green eyes bright and wide in the dark, his thin face and shaggy hair gleaming in the moon.

He'd taken him to bed once. He'd been taken here by him, both of them. What was one more time sharing a bed with a dude?

“Hey, I'm open to sharing.” He rested a hand on Sweetie's thigh, then winked at Buddy. “If this lovely lady is willing to oblige both of us, then I can accommodate.”

He, his stranger, the man who he'd found laughing in a pool of blood and who he'd held together with nothing but desperate determination, stared at him as if he wanted Gojyo to breathe air into his lungs this time. He crawled forward, slung one arm up over Sweetie's shoulder, and pressed his mouth into Gojyo's. Gojyo startled, not expecting the intensity of the kiss, but when his mouth opened to it automatically, or maybe because that look in his eyes spoke to something in Gojyo's soul, he found himself consumed with teeth and tongue and a desperate keen against his lips. As if Gojyo were air and he was breathing life again.

Gojyo had never thought he'd wanted to sleep with a man, ground-in instincts of Banri calling him a fag whenever he looked at a guy twice telling him it was wrong, but this man kissed like a woman and tasted like warmth that shot through him like lightning, and how the fuck could anything be wrong with that?

Sweetie had worked a hand down between his legs and was stroking his dick, but despite the thrills that gave him, he was too concerned with kissing Buddy back to even recognize the building excitement. When the kiss broke, Gojyo's good sense slammed into him, and he turned and kissed her too. “I got an idea, a'right? We can be gentle on him, and we can both be good to you.” He touched his nose to hers, pecked her on the forehead, and slid a hand down the contour of her breast, waist, and hip again. “Do you think you can use your hands on him while I get you ready?”

“I can do better than that.” She turned to Buddy, shifting to her elbows and bowing in front of him. “Will you spread your legs for me? I want to taste you.”

Gojyo's dick jumped, and for a second he wished she was saying that to him. Then, she got on her knees, pushing Buddy to a sit, propped on his palms with his legs open and his eyes wide as she bowed and kissed the tip of his prick, and Gojyo realized what she was offering him. Presenting, pretty and pink, with silky petals like a rose surrounding her deep core. Her pussy was dewy, and Gojyo couldn't resist the urge to trace her lips and lick his finger clean. She tasted salty and sweet, like soap and tea and the natural iron tang of skin. Gojyo pushed his index finger in again, and her muscles seized around him. Her cunt was soft, like velvet, but tight, clenching around his finger. He caressed her inner walls, pressing towards her belly button the way he'd been taught, and he looked down to see her working Buddy's erection with both hands wrapped around the shaft while mouthing and licking at the head. His throat seized around a lump of nerves, but he worked his finger in a little deeper, pressing for her sweet spot, until she finally inhaled sharply and Buddy's eyes went wide as she inadvertently took him halfway to the root.

“Oh!” He panted a moment, then glanced past her to gape at Gojyo, and Gojyo winked and nodded to her hips.

“I'm taking good care of her.”

“I... I'd love to do the same.” He slid a hand over her shoulder and down her spine, reaching just to the cleft of her ass, tracing that lovely curve. “May I?”

Gojyo knew he was asking her, and withdrew to just the outer edge of her sweet spot, tapping and sliding his finger over light and careful, as she paused in mouthing at his cock to nod, and whisper, “I'd like if both of you would.”

Gojyo slid back in, catching Buddy's eye and nodding, and Buddy slipped his narrow, slender index finger into her pussy. The two of them took turns thrusting in and out, Gojyo working at her G-spot with every pass, sometimes just running over it, then pressing in and tapping hard a few times. Her slick inner walls pulsed around him, seizing like she was jumping when he got her just so, and she breathed in gasps and heaves as he worked a little harder, a little faster, second by second. Buddy was stroking her faster too, focus intent though his cheeks were pink and flushed and he was obviously breathing heavily. Gojyo couldn't see what Sweetie was doing, but she hadn't stopped working at his dick with her hands and mouth, and suddenly Gojyo's erection felt woefully neglected.

“Shit.” He used the hand he was teasing her with to brace himself and got his other hand around his dick and started to pull. He paused for a split second to suck her taste from his finger, savoring the flavor of woman on his tongue before pressing back into her and working his dick like he would never get another chance. He'd thought he had good control, that he was good at waiting until his lover was ready to finish, but he wasn't going to last this time. Buddy, who still held Gojyo's gaze, licked his lips and whispered to Sweetie:

“Do you want to feel him inside you?”

She hummed a soft “uh-huh” into his dick, and Gojyo gripped himself harder. “You sure, Sweetie?”

She let Buddy's dick fall from his lips, head still hung low but desperation and desire making her soft voice thick and rich like syrup. “Yes, please.”

Those words were sweeter than the nectar from her pussy. Gojyo pulled his finger out and gave her cunt a good lick to confirm it, and Gods she was good, but being with her would be so, so much better. He thrust his finger back in, then added a second. “Just wanna make sure you're ready, Sweetie. I want you to love every second of this.”

If anyone deserved the special Gojyo treatment, it was her. Him, too. Both of them. As Gojyo knelt up tall, he could see Sweetie taking him in again, swallowing him deep, and the hunger and want plain in his face, as open and honest as he'd ever been, and Gojyo, despite his instincts screaming how wrong it was, found himself wanting to know what he tasted like again.

He lined his cock up with her cunt and pushed in, slow and steady, leaning heavy across the plane of her back. He reached the root, looped his arm around her neck, then kissed his other lover on the mouth. He kissed Gojyo back, as eager as he'd been the first time, and Gojyo used his leverage to inch himself out and into her cunt with tiny little thrusts. He couldn't get any deeper, but he could make her feel every inch. She cried out though her mouth was full, and he released Buddy from the kiss to back out and pump her in earnest. The savor of both of them was fresh on his tongue and he was ravenous for more.

They worked like a perfect perpetual motion machine, Gojyo taking her with steady but sure thrusts and pushing her mouth deeper onto the other man's dick with each push, and pleasure, heady but rich like sweetest chocolate, like the densest liquor that could touch man's tongue. Gojyo couldn't imagine feeling better or more connected to another person than he ever had than in this moment, let alone bonded to two as if they shared veins.

“I won't last.” Buddy had his fists tight in the sheets, and he looked like he might actually crack and crumble if he had to exert even an ounce more force. He kissed Sweetie briefly, then faced Gojyo with trepidation wound through every line of his face, in the tension singing through every inch of his thin form, and whispered, "I want to see both of you. Will you use your hand on me?"

Sweetie released him from her mouth and lifted her head, and Gojyo caught a glimpse of the intensity in her gaze. She worked her palm around his shaft, lithe fingers a perfect sheath for his weapon, and locked eyes with him, and it hit Gojyo that he had tangled himself squarely in the middle of two star-crossed lovers who'd survived their curse and crashed like comets, and that he was within the inferno left in their wake. For a split second, he wondered if he could just leave, but Sweetie whispered, "Gojyo, more," and Buddy extended his hand to him.

"You, too. Please."

Doubt vanished, consumed like kindling, and Gojyo took Buddy's hand and let him lock his grip around his dick, then ground deep, hard, and fast against Sweetie again, sealed in with the two of them as sure as a blood oath, and damn his eyes if he wasn't the first between the three of them groaning a denial and letting himself go against her inner walls.

He was aware of nothing but bliss for a second, and when he came down, weariness swept over him like a summer breeze, as he felt something warm and wet running down his arm and all over his thighs. He was dripping with his own essence and more when he withdrew and collapsed onto his knees, panting, and Sweetie barely managed to sit back, landing in his lap and on his chest, before Buddy's arms gave out and he fell flat onto his back. The room echoed with their labored breathing, and Gojyo's ears with his own roaring heartbeat and the reverberations of theirs in his head and soul.

What had he gotten himself into?

Buddy was the first to speak: “I am re-evaluating my initial assessment of Hell.”

Gojyo was so wiped all he could do was laugh, and all he could feel was Sweetie's chest trembling against his back as she laughed too. Somehow, the three of them slumped together into a heap of bodies in the bed, nobody caring who was who or what any of them were. She was still curled into his chest, and he had his breast against Gojyo's back, too warm but too comfortable to care. Gojyo sunk contently into the dusk of rest as the sun rose through the window, bathing all of them in the newborn pink of a starting day.

* * *

He sat on the edge of the bed as she dressed for the day in the clothes Gojyo had bought for her, grimacing and nursing at the wound on his gut with his hand. She tsked him softly as she wound a ribbon into her hair. “I'm sorry we were rough on you.” She glanced at Gojyo where he still slept, curled up like a small child with his knees almost to his nose. “He surely meant you no harm either.”

“I didn't think either of you did.” He gave a wan smile, then clutched at the scar, pallor overtaking his faint effort to imitate cheer. “I should have resisted; after all, I am still recovering, though I believe I'm nearly there, but even keeping me as still as you two did, the muscles still move.”

“Involuntarily, and yet you voluntarily joined us.” She gave him a chiding smile, then tied the ribbon in her hair in a bow. “Please rest while I'm gone.”

“Are you certain you'll be alright on your own?”

“I am.” She smoothed the front of her skirt, her smile wistful and fond. “If I am going to live, I suppose I must learn to live again. Besides all that, I am reassured that someone will come after me.” She turned her affectionate gaze to Gojyo, then bent over and kissed him on the cheek. He muttered in his sleep, lips slipping into his natural smirk for a moment before he rolled over again. She turned back to the other man sitting on the bed, her expression shifting subtly as she faced him. “Besides, the market can't be far. I'd like to do something nice for him, and if braving the world out there is what I must do to accomplish that, then I'll do it.”

He studied her, and she could sense his eyes running over her mouth and lips. Then, he smiled. “Do what you must, then.”

He saw her to the door, watching her leave with regret twisting his heartstrings. Before, he had been the one who'd left her and returned to find his life stolen. “She's getting what was taken returned,” he told himself, then slid his hand down over his face, over the cuffs that bit at his earlobes. “If only I could do the same.”

When he closed his eyes against the sunrise, all he saw was red. Red like blood. Red like his host's hair and eyes. Red he'd bathed in, that he could never wipe clean, that would weigh his every step for as long as he still had a step to take. He knew, however, that his work was still incomplete. 

* * *

 

“Not a damn clue but a name and a description.” Sanzo flicked his lighter open and lit a fresh cigarette, as Goku gawked around the street. “First it's just 'Cho Gonou' with shaggy brown hair and green eyes, then 'Sha Gojyo,' the hanyou poker player.”

“If you believe those guys back there, anyway.” Goku nodded towards the bar they were walking away from, then chuckled nervously. “Though I guess goin' back and asking 'em to confirm it might be a bad idea. That guy you almost shot might get some friends, y'know?”

“Shut up.” Sanzo exhaled the first burst of smoke off his cig with a snap of his jaw, walking stiffly with his shoulders hunched in still-fresh anger. “They're useless anyway.” He heaved a sigh, then took another drag. “If this 'Gojyo' character was seen with a wounded man matching the description, then we need to track him down, and if he's a poker player, he'll be known at other dives.” Goku shrugged, following at Sanzo's heels. He couldn't lead him in any better direction, anyway.

“I dunno what to tell ya.”

“And yet you're talking anyway.”

Goku blew a raspberry at Sanzo, but kept an eye on him as he finished his cigarette and rubbed his chin, thinking as they walked. Goku was thinking too; they'd been sent after a mass murderer a few weeks ago and had been asking around the towns in the shadow of Kei'un, and only today had they gotten any sort of solid lead. It had given Goku time to puzzle over why Sanzo, of all people, was being sent after a criminal. The Imperial Guard was a thing, wasn't it? Maybe not so common in the sticks, but if this guy was as big a problem as the talking heads said, wouldn't they be called in? Maybe it was because of who this guy had killed: youkai. Lots of them.

Goku knew the rumors about what happened to people who killed lots of youkai. Maybe that was why the gods wanted this Cho Gonou brought to them. Or maybe there was something else about all this they didn't know.

“You're quiet.” Sanzo had stopped to stare at him, and Goku snorted.

“You were just yappin' at me about talking!”

“At least when you're talking, I know what's going through that monkey brain of yours.” Sanzo crossed his arms, but Goku looked past him to see they were outside of another pub. Sanzo cast an aspersive glare at the dusty windows and grimy-looking woodwork. “Look, this place is seedy, I'm going in alone. Just stay here, don't go far. I won't be long.” He pivoted around and pushed through the doors without waiting for Goku to agree, and Goku stuck his tongue out at Sanzo's retreating back.

He heard soft laughter from behind him, and turned to see a pretty girl with wavy, light brown hair cropped to her shoulders and tied from her face with a red ribbon watching him.

“Sorry; your brother is the fussy sort, isn't he? I know what that's like.”

"Yeah, 'cept he's not my brother. I mean, he's kinda like one, but different? More than that, I guess?" Goku chuckled and shrugged. "Don't worry 'bout him, though! Um, he says this place is shady, so maybe you shouldn't hang around."

"Oh, is it?" Her hands came together around the handle of her shopping basket, wringing together tight. "Ah, but Gojyo said the market... Er, young man, do you know which way the main market is?” She fidgeted, gesticulating and squeezing her hands with obvious nervousness. “It's my first time in town, you see -- I've been living with a friend in a cabin on the outskirts while I've been unwell – and I found a fruit seller, but I'm afraid I need to bring home more food than that."

"Sure do!" Goku turned and pointed. "Two streets that way, then turn right and go three more streets down. You can't miss it, you'll know it when you smell the meatballs!" His stomach inadvertently growled at the thought. "Man, I could go for some now."

She giggled and reached into her basket. "I'm afraid I don't have any." She held out a crisp green apple. "Will this do to tide you over until your brother can take you to get some?"

Goku gasped with glee. "Wow, thanks!"

"Thank you, young man." She bowed at the waist. "I'll be off, but I hope to see you again some time." She smiled as she rose, then turned on the ball of her foot and departed, skirt swaying with the gentle swing of her hips. Goku couldn't help but grin to himself before taking a big bite of the apple.

"What a nice lady." Then, something she said hung up in his mind. "Hmm."

"Don't talk with your mouth full." Goku ducked the harisen just before it whacked him on the back of the head, spinning around and swallowing his mouthful hard.

"Don't smack me while I'm eating!" Sanzo raised an eyebrow at him as he wiped the back of his mouth with his hand. "But I got an idea! That guy, his name was Gojyo, right? Do you know if he has a girlfriend?"

Sanzo, looking as ennui-stricken and disabused as ever, pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. "Based on the conversations I've had, he's had several, but only for a night or two at a time. I've met a few who've told me that if I do find him, I should tell him to do something anatomically impossible."

"What's that?" Goku cocked his head, and Sanzo seethed for a second before answering.

"To go fuck himself." He rolled his eyes, as Goku stifled another laugh."And why, pray tell, would you ask a stupid question like that?"

"Thought of something. Probably stupid, though." Goku shrugged, but fell into step at Sanzo's side. "It's not like the doctor said that Gojyo guy had a girl with him, too."

Sanzo didn't move forward, instead pivoting around. "What are you going on about?"

"The lady who gave me the apple said something about a Gojyo, and living with a friend in the woods. I thought maybe it was his girlfriend, y'know?"

Sanzo seemed to stop cold, eyes wide, and Goku could smell the apoplexy coming. However, he didn't sense the harisen coming this time, as Sanzo whacked him hard. “Say things like that sooner! Which way did she go? What did she look like?” Goku gawped as Sanzo grabbed him by the hair. “Come on, walk and talk! The sooner we hunt them down, the sooner we can be done with this nonsense...”

Hunt her down. The words sat funny in Goku's mouth. If that nice lady was someone who needed to be hunted, if this Gojyo had taken in a mass murderer, and what with Goku already suspecting there was something they didn't know about the actual man they were chasing, then what were they really doing here?

“She said she was goin' to the market,” Goku mumbled, “But maybe we should ask doctors who help ladies? She said she was sick, too...”

“If we can't find her one way, then we'll find her and all of them the other.” Sanzo marched on, focused tight on accomplishing their mission at all costs. Goku followed, knowing, and suspecting that maybe Sanzo knew too, that if they had questions about what they were doing, the only way they were going to get answers was to do it. 

* * *

 

Gojyo woke up to the smell of grilled meat and a growling stomach. He rose, scraping his hair from his eyes and squinting into the afternoon sun.

Afternoon? Shit, this was later than usual for him, and he'd even been getting used to waking up early to change Buddy's bandages and clean the scar. Then, he remembered his late night and early morning, and let himself fall back onto the pillow, laughing to himself.

“That actually happened. I can't believe that actually happened.”

When he got out of bed, and trudged out into the main room, it was to see Sweetie in his chair with a book open on her lap and Buddy at the stove, turning mincemeat patties. Buddy was the first to spot him and greeted him with a smile. “Good afternoon. It's just time for lunch.”

Sweetie put her book down and rose, approaching him and taking his hands. “Did you sleep well? Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Uh, thanks.” Gojyo felt a little heat touch his cheeks as she pulled him towards the kitchen table the three of them had been sharing. Buddy set down plates of mincemeat steaks over rice with what looked like small green half-moons in some sort of sauce on top, and while Gojyo never had cause to complain about the food for the last month (mostly because he hadn't had to cook it), this was the gourmet kind of stuff he saw through the windows of restaurants he didn't have the manners to go to. “You made this, Buddy?”

“Didn't one of us say?” Sweetie giggled. “He's the better chef between us.”

“I'm finally feeling up to standing at the stove long enough to manage it.” Buddy glowed with obvious pride as he pulled the armchair over and eased himself into it. “I'm feeling much better, thanks in no small part to your kindness.” He motioned for Gojyo to begin. “Please consider this something of a reward for your generosity.”

“Seeing you on your feet and not in a pool of blood is reward enough for me, but this is damn nice too.” Gojyo shoveled a few bites in, heart racing again. Sweetie giggled as she took up her chopsticks and broke a piece of the steak off.

“It's only something of a reward. We had to borrow from your poker winnings for the ingredients.”

Gojyo laughed. “Hey, it's better than anything I'd'a spent the extra scratch on! Like I need more nudie mags? Not when I can have this.” He looked between them, grinning like a kid getting his birthday cake, and dug in.

Sweetie spent the afternoon cleaning the house, shaking out the quilt and airing the room, and Buddy helped to fold the laundry and wiped down the counters. Gojyo meandered between them, offering to help but being brushed off and pushed back with gentle smiles and reassurances.

“We're just returning the favor,” she told him as she rubbed his cheek and nudged him back before returning to beating out the carpet over the side of the porch.

“You've been so kind to both of us. I'm grateful. Allow me to do this for you.” Gojyo couldn't brook an argument as Buddy took up needle and thread and resumed patching the gaps in his denim pants.

When Gojyo's house was as clean as it had ever been, they invited him to sit and play poker with them in the bright, airy space that was his little kitchen now. Sweetie was happily losing every round and giggling as she cut more old magazines into chips, and Gojyo was trying hard not to lose in the same rounds as Sweetie as Buddy handily bluffed his way through every round. Even as the afternoon wore on, as Buddy began to prepare dinner and took his cards over to the cutting board, deftly destroying what Gojyo thought was a cabbage with a knife and tossing it up with eggs, flour, and spice, they played on, as happy as Gojyo could remember being with Banri, with Jien, with anyone who'd ever given him the time of day.

Dinner was what looked like a thick pancake with chunks of cabbage, fried but not greasy, and smelling too good for what had looked like such a simple recipe. The fried egg and mayonnaise and hot sauce on top just made Gojyo's stomach growl all the louder, as Buddy chuckled and sat, setting down a plate of the same for Sweetie and a plate without the mayonnaise drizzle for himself. “It's called okonomiyaki. I read about it in a magazine and had to recreate it. It's a bit of an indulgence, but I sincerely hope you enjoy it.”

Sweetie clapped her hands together, brushing away the few chips that were remaining. “It's been so long! I've missed food like this.” She smiled in a warm way that was meant just for him (though Gojyo with a mouthful of rich pancake, tender with egg but crunchy with cabbage, couldn't bring himself to be jealous). “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” Buddy picked at the edge of his pancake with his chopsticks. “I'm glad I had a chance to cook for you before I left.”

Sweetie dropped her chopsticks to her plate with a gasp, and Gojyo swallowed hard and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you're leaving?”

“I'm afraid I am.” He shifted, clearly a little uncomfortable as both Sweetie and Gojyo turned their acute attention to him. “If I'm well enough to stand, to move, to, er, engage with those around me, then I'm well enough to stop troubling you.”

“Troubling?” Sweetie put her fingers to her lips, clearly straining not to bite her nail. “Oh, no...”

“It's your decision, and I can't stop you, though it's been good to have you.” Gojyo couldn't look at him as he said it. “You're both welcome here as long as you like, but if you want to leave, I'll wish you the best, yeah?”

“Gojyo!” Sweetie reached over and slapped at his hand. “Don't encourage him!” She looked urgently over at Buddy. “You can't leave, you're hardly well enough--”

“But I am, and it's as I told him. There's a bit more I have to do.” Buddy didn't meet her eyes, and at that, her gaze dropped away.

“Silly boy.” She shook her head, then looked to Gojyo. “Were you going to ask him what he meant?”

This made Gojyo startle a little, and he inched back from the table, forcing a smile. “Well, hey, your affairs are none of my business. I kinda nosed in enough, didn't I? I'm curious, for sure, but I figured you'd tell me when you felt like it.”

“Is that what you were doing?” Sweetie cocked her head, then glanced over to Buddy. “He didn't ask you?”

“Not a thing. I would have explained myself, had you merely asked.” Buddy smiled wryly and set his elbow on the table, nudging his plate away, and resting his chin in his hand. “Do you mind if I explain?”

Sweetie hung her head low. “You'll likely be able to do it better than I.”

“I suppose I saw more of it. Hm.” He rubbed his lower lip, then looked at Gojyo, straight on. “The Hyakugan Clan came to the town we lived in, demanding a tribute. I was away, teaching school in the next town over where nobody knew who I was or our living situation. However, in the town we were living, it was known that we were unwed lovers, and rumors did abound that we were siblings.”

Gojyo sealed his lips shut, resolving not to ask. Sweetie shook her head. “We are, you know. We remember enough of each other, even separated to different orphanages as young as we were, that our being siblings is fact. We weren't raised as such but...”

“The taboo never disturbed me.” Buddy shrugged his shoulders stiffly. “I didn't care if we shared blood. You were what I had been missing for my entire miserable life. Our former neighbors disagreed. They thought it better to sacrifice you and separate us, justifying their sins.” He heaved a sigh, then smiled like sunlight shone from his face. “So, I justified killing every single living creature responsible for her being removed from me.”

Gojyo knew his jaw had dropped as Buddy sat back, chuckling. “I slaughtered every living soul in that town. Every last one of them. I left no wives to cry nor orphans to mourn. I do hope someone went back for the livestock, but in that moment, I didn't care, they had stolen the one person for whom I thought life was worth living. Then, I went after Hyakugan. Every outpost, every nest they kept, every den of thieves, I killed the first few to frighten them and make them tell me where to look next for her, then kill the rest. My hands and clothes were dyed scarlet with youkai blood.” He turned his gaze down to his palms as if he could still see it, still feel it, and Gojyo got the idea that maybe he did.

Buddy hesitated, barely seeming to breathe, before he went on: “I did find her, at Hyakugan Maoh's seat. It's not far from here, you know, only a few kilometers into the hills.” He motioned vaguely West. “And I did the same there as I had with every other Hyakugan clan hideout. I killed them all and fought my way to their dungeon, where she had been kept.” He bit his lip. “And she tells me there, she had been--”

“He knows,” Sweetie whispered. She shook her head, and Gojyo suddenly no longer cared how good dinner smelled, he didn't want to eat ever again at all the horrid implications she'd twisted up into those two words. “You and I knew better than to conceive a child, and that one... it wouldn't have been human.” Gojyo saw her hand slide down to squeeze her own knee, joints shaking with anxiety. “I regret ever lamenting that, but...”

“You were violated. They stole something from you that couldn't be returned. I couldn't forgive them.” Buddy shook his head slowly, and she bit her lip.

“I couldn't forgive myself for letting it happen. For even... getting used to it. Accepting that my daily torment would be routine for however long my captors saw fit to let me live.” Sweetie bowed her head low. “When he arrived, knife in hand, and I realized what he'd done for a wretched thing like me...”

“She greeted me with a smile and took the knife from my hands.” Buddy's expression tightened as if wound back by screws. “She nearly put it through her own belly.”

“He stopped me, wrestled the knife from my hands through the bars, and broke the lock.” Sweetie was covering her face now, as if shielding herself from Buddy, as if she couldn't bear to look at him. “He was advancing on me as if I was just the next victim of his rampage, and then--”

Gojyo was there, in the moment, the rain pounding the roof around him, his heart racing in his ears, and the smiling man across the table was a menace, his life was forfeit, and he didn't even care anymore. Then, the room was different, flowers were broken at his feet, a woman was holding an axe and her claws were coming for him, and he was going to die because a woman who should have loved him was a monster, and--

“I was surprised from behind.” Buddy laughed, croaky and raspy like the needle on a record tapering to a dead halt on the end of its track, and his palm landed over the healing wound on his stomach. “One lone demon still lived, and he jammed his blade into me. I turned around and finished him off, but... ah, my, you saw the wound.” He laughed again, even more uneasily, and Sweetie sighed and shook her head.

“The silly man told me to run.” She heaved a sigh that carried the weight of the universe on the wind. “But how could I? I forced him to his feet – I don't even remember what I said to him – was it...”

“If I am going to live, then so shall you.”  Buddy pursed his lips. “Now live, damn you.” He turned and fixed his gaze on her. “Do those words ring a bell?”

She bit her lip, then nodded and dared shift her eyes towards Gojyo. “And we staggered away until we reached the place where you found us.”

Gojyo found himself dumbfounded, even as Buddy ran his finger down the shell of his ear in contemplation. "And yet, despite all that, you've not run screaming from the room. Aren't you horrified?"

Gojyo sucked in a breath, then nodded. "Yeah. That's pretty fucked up. You guys have been through some shit." He licked his lips, staring at the food on his plate, the cards that had been pushed aside and forgotten for the moment, the light glinting off of the ribbon in Sweetie's hair, and remembered that despite all that, they were still people. Still alive. "But you made it. No matter what you had to do, you made it." He found he could still smile at them. "I don't mind that you didn't tell me. Everyone's got stuff they don't like to talk about, if only 'cause it makes 'em think about it again."

"Everyone?" Sweetie glanced at Gojyo, but though her expression was mild, her gaze was heavy. "Even you?"

"Well." He swallowed. "I mean, sure. Duh. I mean, you really want me to have to think about this chick with, like, peeling-off eczema I slept with the week before I found you two?" He mock-shuddered, and Sweetie giggled a little, and Gojyo relaxed in the non-truth. Hell, they were allowed theirs, let him have his. Especially if they were about to leave him. Fuck it. "But like I said, your affairs are your own. It ain't my place to go nosin' around, no matter how curious I was. I'm sorry I asked you what stuff I did."

Buddy and Sweetie traded quizzical expressions, like one had looked into a mirror they didn't know was there, before facing Gojyo again. "So you didn't ask out of politeness?" Buddy raised an eyebrow with distinct intrigue. Gojyo shrugged.

"Figured you'd tell me if you felt like it."

"I was waiting for you to ask," Sweetie admitted, then rubbed her brow, smiling with a mixture of bitterness and mirth. "Although, there's something else he hasn't asked either of us." She nodded to Buddy, who frowned.

"Hasn't he? Oh. Oh, my, no." He chuckled into a cupped hand and looked at Gojyo, face crinkled up. "You've never called either of us by name, have you? Have we failed to introduce ourselves?"

Gojyo snorted. "I told you. I figured you'd tell me when you were ready."

Sweetie shook her head, nudging her plate further back with her fingers. "Goodness, if the nuns could see my manners now. My knuckles would bleed from being rapped." She turned in her seat all the way. "I apologize that I was in no state to properly introduce myself when we met."

“I do, as well.” The man put his hands on his thighs and bowed at the waist without standing. “May I, first? After all, unless you plan to join me, you'll have plenty of time to acquaint yourself with him.” Gojyo felt that barb in his own heart, and from the pain that flickered over Sweetie's face, he was sure she did too. She mouthed something Gojyo didn't hear, but the man turned to Gojyo with a smile like a singer about to step back from the edge of the stage. “My name is Ch--”

There was a loud rap at the door right then, Sweetie jumped, and Gojyo shoved his chair back. “For fuck's sake, we're havin' a damn conversation here! Who th' – fuck!” He stormed to his feet and halfway to the door, then whipped around and wagged a finger at the two of them. “Hold that thought.” He stomped the rest of the way to the door and opened it partway, lolling against the jamb and taking in the two standing outside: a blond guy in a white robe – monk? Priest? Weird that he had hair, and that he was that young and actually kind of pretty for a dude. Gojyo raised an eyebrow, but the monk/priest/whatever cleared his throat, and Gojyo turned his attention to him. “Can I help you?” He put on a casual smirk. “Out collecting alms?”

“Hmph.” The priest's nostrils flared, but he spoke politely enough, if with disdain so thick Gojyo felt sticky from it: “Sorry to bother you at this time of night. I'm looking for someone, and it's my understanding he might be here.”

Gojyo knew his way around a poker face, and he managed not to look behind him to his guests. “Is that so?”

The priest's eyes narrowed, though it didn't make him any less pretty. “If he's not here, then he may have passed through. He's around twenty, with unkempt brown hair and green eyes.” He glared _through_ Gojyo, as if he already knew. “You should know he's wanted for mass murder. His name is Cho Gonou. Has he been here?”

“Never heard of him.” Gojyo slouched a little harder against the door. “Can't help you, don't know him.”

He could faintly hear his guests whispering between each other behind him, and hoped like hell the priest's ears were dulled out from praying and chanting all day. It appeared that his attitude hadn't been dulled by hours of meditation, at least: “Cut the bullshit. We talked to the doctor who treated him and that girlfriend of yours, we know that he's here with you.” He crossed his arms, and any idea Gojyo had of this guy being a virtuous priest went up in smoke. He found himself on his back foot, but he closed his arms tight around his chest and kept his poker face up. “I suggest you stop hiding him and get the hell out of here, unless you want me to consider you an accomplice.” The priest sneered at him. “You know what he did, don't you?”

“I said I'd never heard of him. I don't know that name.” Fuck if this was how Gojyo had wanted to find his name out, though. “Why the hell's a priest looking for a murderer, anyway?”

The priest didn't answer him, instead drawing himself up to his full height (shorter than Gojyo, Gojyo couldn't help but notice; yeah, he could take the prayerbook fucker if he had to), and moving to grab the doorknob, but Gojyo snatched his wrist and squeezed. The priest's whole body rippled with anger like a shock running through him, and his next glare at Gojyo was pure electricity. “Let go of me.”

“And what if I don't? Get out of my house.”

“Let. Go.”

Gojyo was about to fire back, but suddenly the priest yanked his arm, setting Gojyo off balance just enough to let him yank Gojyo's gut right into his knee. Gojyo choked on his own breath as his solar plexus warped. The priest threw Gojyo off of his own porch into a heap, and Gojyo groaned. “Son of a...” He tumbled over just in time to see the priest pushing his door open, and the wind that had been knocked out of him gusted back in a damn hurry. He rolled back to his feet and gave chase, seizing the priest by the shoulder, forcing him back around, and landing a nasty haymaker square on the bastard priest's jaw. The priest grunted as he stumbled back but caught himself, his expression nastier than ever as he smeared the blood from his split lip off with his sleeve.

“You signed your own death warrant now, bastard.”

Gojyo smirked, already grounding his heels for the next salvo as he put himself between the priest and his front door. “You ain't a normal priest, are ya?”

“You're wasting my time and what precious little you have left.” The priest was just seething with derision now, in every cold word: “I'm _politely_ requesting you step aside or get ready to get stepped over.”

“Hah. Sorry, but I don't take requests from dudes, no matter how pretty they are.” Gojyo shook his arms out, limbering up. The guy had gotten one good hit on him, Gojyo had no plans on letting him get the next. The priest, his lip curled back like a dog ready to bite, just shook his head.

“You really do want to die, don't you? Allow me, in my _priestly_ duties, to assist you.”

Gojyo stepped forward, preparing to remove the guy. “Good luck with that.”

His foot never landed because a bullet whizzed past Gojyo's ear, and he stumbled back as his brain tried to catch up with what the fuck had just happened. The bullet was smoking in the wall next to his head, and the priest was aiming a gun squarely at him. That had really just fucking happened. “Holy shit, you really ain't a priest, are you?”

“I thought you were asking for a bullet between the eyes. Some ventilation for that hot head of yours.” The priest cocked the hammer back. “Step aside or I'll have to oblige.”

Gojyo grounded his heels. “There is no way in--”

“Gojyo, no!” The door flung open, and Sweetie was in front of him, throwing her arms wide. “Your life isn't--”

“Sweetie!” Gojyo grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her back around. “No, no you don't, you get back inside and--”

“Gojyo!” The door was open wide, and there he was, rushing to put himself between Gojyo and the armed priest too.

FUCK.

“Get your ass back inside, both of you!”

“You,” the priest growled, a rattle in his throat, and his wrist shifted just a little, changing his target. “You're Cho Gonou, aren't you?”

Gojyo had been left before. He was almost fucking used to it. However, he'd watched people he gave a damn about die before, too, and that wasn't something he was going to deal with. Bullet in his skull or not.

Without even thinking, Gojyo wound up and kicked the priest in the arm as hard as he could, making him drop the gun, then dove forward and tackled him. “Yeah, I hope you got a good fucking look, my ground holds are killer and I ain't lettin' you up!”

“You...” The priest writhed. “You bastard...”

Gojyo wasn't listening to him, but he jerked his head back up to Buddy – no, Cho Gonou, and his sister. “If you're going, now's the time.” The two of them, those matched sets of green eyes, lingered on him as the priest kept trying to writhe his way loose. “Come on, you said you had something you still wanted to do! I can't hold him forever, get the hell out of here!”

Gonou inhaled sharply, as Sweetie turned to him with plaintive eyes. “Gonou--”

Gonou grimaced, then with one last look at Sweetie, turned for the road and took off running. “Damn it!” Gojyo felt the ground shake as the priest pounded the ground with his fist. “Goku, now!”

There was another thud on the ground as something dropped from a tree, and a young-looking boy in traditional clothes dropped from the tree onto the path directly in front of Gonou. He popped up to a stand, grinning. “Yo!”

Sweetie gasped. “The boy!”

Gojyo's grip on the priest tightened. “Shit, you had backup?!”

“Yeah, Sanzo said to stay out of the way unless stuff got hairy!” The kid – Goku – grinned and cracked his knuckles. “So, I just gotta knock him out, right?”

Gonou shivered a little. “You're just a chil--”

Goku launched a kick at Gonou's head, and Gonou lifted both his arms to block, deftly knocking Goku off. Gojyo gaped, because he hadn't expected Gonou, still wounded, to react that damn fast, but Gojyo saw his hand move to cover the wound, saw him slouch and gasp, as Goku popped back up to his feet and pointed at Gonou, beaming.

“Didja see that, Sanzo?! That was cool! This is gonna be great!”

The priest groaned, pausing in his struggle against Gojyo to heave a sigh. “Stop having fun!”

Gojyo couldn't tell when his heart had stopped, and he wasn't sure whether he should laugh or scream, . From the wide-eyed horror on Sweetie's face, as she stood pinned by her own shock, nor did she. Goku just rolled his shoulders back as Gonou got his spine straight again. “Fine, fine, I'll take him serious!” He hopped forward, readying himself, but just as he launched another kick, Sweetie bolted over Gojyo and grabbed the pistol off the ground, hands shaking, shrieking:

“STOP IT!” She got both hands on the pistol and pointed it at Goku, standing with her quaking legs apart to get herself steady. “ALL OF YOU!” She heaved a few ragged breaths, her chest expanding and contracting like the belly of an accordion and her tiny wheezes, barely audible, like the same instrument dying a slow, painful death. “You... you can't... I can't...”

Gonou was on the ground, laid low by Goku's kick, but Goku put his hands up, grinning nervously. “Uh, Sanzo, we didn't think about--”

“Let him go,” Kanan heaved, every word squeezed out of her as if she were being gripped by a giant hand, and Gojyo suddenly knew exactly where she was. If she weren't holding that gun so tight, she'd be wringing her hands together as her panic spiraled higher and higher. “He... I'm the reason he did it!” She turned the gun to her own chest, and without thinking, Gojyo launched to his feet.

“Sweetie, no!”

“KANAN!” Gonou lurched forward, but groaned and clutched at his stomach again, and Goku stood over him with his arms crossed, making clear he was had. In the instant Gojyo let him up, Sanzo jumped up and tackled him back to the ground, pushing his face into the dirt. Kanan shrieked, her finger tightened on the trigger, but Gonou flung his arm out. “You... you made me live! You can't die here now!”

Sanzo growled and glowered around, grinding Gojyo's face down harder. “Enough of this bullshit carousel! I want someone to explain what the fuck I've walked into!”

“THEN LISTEN!” Kanan was trembling, and Gojyo wanted to reach for her and calm her down. He strained, but with Sanzo sitting straddled on top of him, his arms were pinned down.

“Hey, Sweetie? Kanan? That's a pretty name, Kanan.” He winced, but he felt Sanzo shift his weight back, maybe even taking some of the weight off. “Kanan, listen, I'm beggin' ya, put the gun down. Just put the gun down. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt ya, not even you, let's just get the gun out of the picture so we can talk.”

“G....” Kanan's wild gaze shot between Gojyo and Gonou, finger still trembling on the trigger. “Go...”

“There's only one thing I want to do, I swear it,” Gonou whispered from his place on the ground. “Give me leave to do this one thing and I will let you do whatever you want with me. This man – this kind man...” He swallowed hard, then shook his head. “He has nothing to do with me, and he didn't know of my crimes when he saved my life. Kanan is an innocent victim in all this. I'm the criminal here, and I know that there is no atonement for my crimes, but if you let me do one last thing, I'll be yours to deal with as you see fit.”

Kanan immediately turned the gun and pointed it at Sanzo, but if she'd intended to make a demand, it came out instead as a wobbly plea. “Let him.”

“Tch.” The priest scoffed, unfazed by the gun pointed at him. “And why should I?”

Kanan swallowed, then turned the gun one last time, this time to Gonou. Goku jumped back, panicked, but Kanan finally seemed to have her aim steady. “Because I will go with him. And I will hold him to his word and bring him back. If he's a dead man in your eyes, then you may as well let me kill him if he breaks his word.”

“Break my word,” Gonou repeated, then laughed bitterly as he stood, Kanan training the gun on him. “If only it were that simple. I'm sorry, Kanan. I will keep my promise.” Then, he broke into a run. Goku gaped.

“Hey, wait a minute!” He ran the first few steps after him, before kicking the ground. “Damn it...”

Gojyo, meanwhile, let himself sink into the dirt. Somehow, seeing him turn his back and vanish into the dark. had sapped all the strength he'd had, so even when Sanzo jumped to his feet, he didn't move. Kanan, too, let her quaking hands fall to her side, giving Sanzo a chance to snatch the gun from her hands. “Idiot,” he snapped. “Are you just going to let him run? Or are you more worried about the moron on the ground there?”

Kanan turned to Gojyo, wide-eyed again, and he pushed himself to his hands. Gojyo took her in, her ghostly pallor, her trembling hands. He waved one hand as he got to his knees. “Kanan, I dunno what promise he's trying to keep for ya, but whatever he's doing, it's 'cause he loves you.”

“But, Gojyo--”

“I think maybe he feels like... Like because he couldn't protect you, he doesn't think you can love him.” He remembered what Gonou had told him about why they weren't lovers, and grimaced. “I mean, I'm the last person you ought'a listen to on this. Ain't nobody ever loved me, and I never even thought I'd want that sort of thing, but the way he talked about you, it sounded like where he was with you was the best thing in the world. I think that losing that's what killed him, not that knife in his gut. Go after him, Sweetie.”

Kanan's lower lip wiggled, but Goku approached and patted her hand. “Hey, maybe we should all take a second and talk about what we know?”

“I'm so sorry I threatened you,” she sobbed in a rush, as if she couldn't keep it in anymore. Goku winced, then turned to Gojyo.

“Up you get, Mister!” He held a hand out, and Gojyo realized the kid wanted him off his knees. He accepted the kid's hand and hoisted himself back to a stand, just as he smelled cheap tobacco and realized the priest had lit up a cigarette.

“'That's a pretty name, Kanan.' You said that like you'd never heard it before.” He dragged on his smoke, then exhaled it with his next question: “Are you telling me that this was the first either of them—” He motioned between Kanan and where Gonou had last stood –  “had told you who they were?”

“Yeah, I told you. I didn't ask anything, and he only told me anything tonight.” Gojyo rubbed the dirt off of his jaw. “That name... it doesn't suit him.” He couldn't imagine saying it, thinking it when he thought of his face, hearing Kanan saying it, calling it out in bed.

“But it is who he is, and I'd like to know who you know him as.” Sanzo turned to the road. “He won't get far as he is. Come on, get inside.” He jerked his thumb towards the door. “I'd like to ask you a couple questions, and her, too.”

Gojyo glanced to Kanan, who was standing, crestfallen and half-broken, and he took her hand, ready to pick up the pieces of her all over again if he had to. “Well, I ain't got any better ideas. Come on, Kanan. Let's see if we can get this straightened out.”

Kanan forced a shaky nod, and this time, Gojyo knew he was bringing the wrong people home but couldn't be bothered to give a damn about it. Having them there felt too right, and this might be his chance to keep it.


End file.
